This blog draws on current affairs, local history, politics, international relations (esp. Africa, the Carribean and the Middle East). My work as a School Governor will creep in and my interest in genealogy and the poet Robert Bloomfield. I live in NW6 Kilburn/West Hampstead so that features too. I co-ordinate and administer the Historic Kilburn Plaque Fund as well as being a Trustee of the Kilburn Festival. Contact: ed.fordham@gmail.com facebook page: ed fordham twitter: edfordham

Tuesday, 3 February 2009

The view up here is pretty 'new'

The school in New End, Hampstead is one of the delights of Hampstead village not least because of the range of noise the playground gives off during the day. The effect is stimulating and cheery...

These two pics - taken almost from above the school - from one of the neighbouring blocks - shows the size and the scale of the building and just how striking it was.

T.J. Bailey was a noted British architect who led the London School Board architects department in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

This actual building was opened in 1906 and has been serving pupils brilliantly ever since.

Currently housing a Primary School and a Nursery it accommodates boys and girls from 3 to 11 years.

There's a piece by Marc Mullen from the Ham and High on the web that alludes to the pre-school history of the school foundation:"The school was an interesting story before it even opened.The London Schools Board (LSB) took over three schools on private sites and immediately condemned them, leaving 640 children without a school.

In 1900 LSB's failed in its attempt to buy a site next to Burgh House, where housing block Well House now sits.But in 1903, with the help of the newly formed Hampstead Council, LSB used a compulsory purchase order to buy the land just off Streatley Place for the school.

Architect TJ Bailey, designer of more than 200 school buildings in the late 19th century, drew up the plans for the school, which opened in 1906."